by Kailin Gow
The Ascension
The Wordwick Games™
Book 2
kailin gow
The Ascension: Wordwick Games
Published by THE EDGE
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Copyright © 2010 Kailin Gow
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dedication
To London, my daughter, who has opened my heart to the full potential of human love.
Prologue
Gem moved closer to the fire in the ruler’s bedroom, her bedroom, seeking respite from the cold that had started to seep through Anachronia’s castle. It was too early for winter, but the land that stretched out before her; especial y the crops she had helped meticulously planted showed the withering of frost. The cold left her feeling lethargic and drained. Taking a seat by the window, Gem brushed a strand of blonde hair back from her face, letting her fingers linger for a moment on the crown that sat on her brow. Some days, it stil didn’t seem real. Gem certainly hadn’t meant to end up as the ruler of a magical kingdom, though to be fair, very few people do.
She hadn’t even meant to spend the last two months there. When Henry Word had told her the truth; that Gem was his daughter, and that, despite al the pretense, Anachronia was real, Gem didn’t know what to do. She’d half wished that the moment could be taken back, but things like that were irrevocable. She couldn’t go home to face the people she had thought of as her parents, al these years never suspecting they were otherwise, but Gem couldn’t just stand there either. She had run back to the sleep pod leading to Anachronia almost on instinct, hoping for space, or time, or something that would let her make sense of it. If Anachronia was real, then she was needed there. She had, after al , become its ruler.
Once she was here though, there had been so much to do. There had been the settlements out on the fertile land to build, and the dragon to look after, not to mention endless petty disputes between individuals from the Spurious
and Perfidious
tribes. They might have put aside open warfare, but they seemed to be determined to make up for it with a stream of smal complaints for Gem’s arbitration.
A knock on the door announced Goolrick, the court’s wizard. For once, the young man wasn’t dressed in his ostentatious gold robes, but had settled for a simple dark tunic and hose. The gold of his hair spil ed over the shoulders. To Gem’s eye, the combination worked far better on him, making him look like the good-looking man in his early twenties he was, rather than someone attempting to appear older and more important. Goolrick had been a big help in the last few weeks, working assiduously and displaying a talent for organizing that had seen things progress at a rapid rate in the Kingdom. And if part of Gem suspected that he had original y honed that talent plotting against her and the others, Goolrick hadn’t shown any sign of going back to it.
Currently though, he looked serious.
“Hi Goolrick. What’s wrong?”
“There is a message, My Queen.”
Gem was hardly surprised by that. There were always messages these days. They formed a seemi ngly interminable stream of things that needed to be attended to. Who would have thought that being in charge of a place like Anachronia would be such hard work?
“Come and sit down, Goolrick, then tel me al about it. What can be so sudden that it has you looking so distressed?”
Goolrick shuddered as he sat down.
“Please don’t joke about it. I’ve just spent a week going through the castle treasury, checking just h o w meager our resources are. With this unexpected early frost, the crops we thought would nourish the people of Anachronia, according to your plans, wil not be. Unless there is another source, another land where it is possible to plant, our food supply wil be depleted. We were counting on the long days of summer and the warmth of autumn, but now, the people of Anachronia may starve if we don’t have a harvest. This though…”
“What is it?”
Goolrick held up a black envelope, with a familiar red W stenciled across the back.
“I do not know the contents of the message, only the way it arrived.”
“Let me guess,” Gem sighed. “It was left by a mysterious, grey-cloaked figure?”
Goolrick frowned, and shook his head.
“No. I’m sure I would have noticed. It just dropped from the air in the middle of breakfast and landed in the middle of a toast rack. Should there have been someone like that?”
Gem decided not to mention that toast racks, common in present day, especial y England where Word Castle was located, were almost certainly wrong for a medieval kingdom. If you started to complain about the anachronisms here, you would never stop. They cal ed it Anachronia for a reason.
“There was last time,” she said. “The message is from my… from Henry Word.”
“I had guessed that much,” Goolrick admitted.
“Would you like some privacy to read it?” Gem shook her head. That was the last thing she wanted. Actual y, she wasn’t sure she wanted any kind of message at al , but Gem suspected that simply ignoring it wouldn’t do much good.
“Just open it and give me the highlights, please,” she said, and Goolrick ripped the envelope open. The young wizard examined the contents once, then again. His eyes widened, and Gem felt worry creep through her.
“What is it?” she asked. Goolrick bit his lip.
“I’m not sure if you wil like this.”
“Goolrick.” Gem had spent some time perfecting what she thought of as her “I’m the Queen, now please do as you’re told” voice. It wasn’t quite a rebuke, but it was a reminder that one could be on the way. Gem didn’t normal y have to use it much, but it came in handy occasional y. “Spil , what does it say?”
“It says… wel , it says that Henry Word has gone missing, and that Dr. Brown would like to see you at once.”
The words made Gem freeze. She had been expecting… what? Some attempt to persuade her to come back, perhaps. An attempt at reconciliation, not this. The sheer shock of it kept her from thinking as seconds stretched. Final y, it was Goolrick’s polite cough that brought her out of it.
“You should go, of course.”
“Just like that?”
The young wizard shrugged.
“You have the means.”
That was true. Gem raised her left hand so that the red glowing ring on her little finger caught the light. It shone resplendently, but that wasn’t why Gem wore it. It was her connection to her world, or at least to the sleep pod in Word castle.
“But there is so much to do here,” she tried.
“There is the food issue here, and there are discussions with the Shadow King coming up, and…”
“…and none of that is the real reason.” Goolrick regarded her level y. “Go, Gem. It is time Goolrick regarded her level y. “Go, Gem. It is time you went back, if only briefly. You can’t renounce al connection to your world. This sounds like an emergency, in any case.”
He was right, of course. Gem knew that.
Besides, she
knew Dr. Brown wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble if it weren’t urgent.
“So, Goolrick, promise that you won’t usurp, terrorize, or general y behave like a stereotypical malevolent wizard the moment I’m gone?” Gem smiled jokingly as she said it, but it wasn’t entirely a joke. Goolrick held up one hand.
“Of course, though you only have my word as a reformed evil wizard.” Goolrick smiled wryly. He had tried making up for his wrong to Gem by being as devoted and loyal to her as he can these past few months in hope that she would forgive him. Although Gem, as kind and trusting as she was, let him stay in Anachronia besides her, Goolrick felt she stil had difficulties in completely trusting him. Perhaps that was why he stil felt her attraction to him, his sense of danger, and her being so close to it.
Gem supposed that she had asked for that.
She started to reach for the ring that would take her back.
“One moment,” Goolrick said, and then, as soon as Gem paused, he pul ed her into his arms and kissed her. It was brief, barely more than a brush of lips, but he did it. He took her soft hands in his, how he wanted to keep holding onto them. “So you won’t forget me… I mean the Kingdom.”
“Of course that’s what you mean,” Gem said, trying not to show how much she actual y liked his kiss and twisted the ring on her finger.
The top of the sleep pod clicked open above her as she woke. Gem clambered out, and briefly looked down. Last time she had come back to the world, she had found herself wearing her own clothes again. This time, though, she seemed to be stil wearing a simple, elegant Anachronian dress of blue silk, edged with gold thread. The room was as she remembered it, looking like something genuinely medieval in its tapestries and ornate furniture, with only the futuristic plastic of the sleep pod making it clear that she was back in her own world.
Gem shoved open the dark oak of the door, and found herself face to face with Dr. Percy Brown.
He hadn’t changed much in the past two months. He was stil balding in a way that made Gem think that sheer effort of thought had burnt off most of the excess hair, while his tweed suit was almost the same. In fact, Gem would not have been surprised if she had discovered that he kept a rack of identical y frayed ones somewhere to choose from. Dr. Brown smiled broadly as he saw her.
“You came! I wasn’t sure that you would. Not after everything. Thank you.”
“Do you want to tel me what is going on?” Gem asked. Dr. Brown blinked.
“Oh yes, of course.” He paused as a computer technician wandered past. “Um… perhaps it would be best if we did this somewhere more private? Henry’s study, perhaps?”
Reluctantly, Gem nodded. She didn’t real y want to go back there, but nor did she wish to be overheard discussing magical other worlds. She could just imagine what someone who didn’t know the truth would make of that. She fol owed Dr. Brown to the smal study, then waited while he unlocked it.
For the most part, the study was just as Gem remembered it, antique furniture awashed with a chaotic sea of papers that only avoided covering chaotic sea of papers that only avoided covering the floor because each stack balanced against another. There was a comfortable chair in front of the desk but not behind, leaving a space that would have been occupied by Henry Word’s wheelchair, had he been there.
Now, a book stand had been set up in the space, and on that stand was a volume, open to a pen and ink sketch. As far as Gem could see, it showed strange people intermingled with hairy, half upright beasts. Above the picture was the single word ‘myriad’.
“What’s that?” Gem asked. Dr. Brown fol owed her gaze and nodded.
“As far as I can tel , now that we have calibrated things more closely, added in al the vectors and calculated the resonance from the data we have been able to col ect…”
“Dr. Brown.” Gem knew that if she didn’t interrupt, she probably wouldn’t get an answer any time soon. Or at least not any answer that wasn’t unbelievably tortuous. “Could I have the short version, please?”
“Wel …um…yes, of course.” Dr. Brown fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket. “What I was trying to say is that I think… I think that the world of Myriad might be where Henry has ended up. I can’t be sure, of course, not without calculating the…” he obviously caught the look Gem gave him, because he paused, licking his lips. “The thing is, if Henry is there, then he could be in a great deal of danger.”
Something caught in Gem then, even though she told herself that she shouldn’t care. “What sort of danger?”
Dr. Brown looked uncomfortable as he searched for the right words for it.
“Myriad is an odd sort of place. It seems to be as much dream as reality, and as much fairy tale as either. Creatures of myth are ubiquitous there. You can understand how awkward that sort of thing is for me to admit, as a man of science, but it seems to be true.”
Gem looked at the picture again, then back at Dr. Brown.
“That doesn’t sound too bad.” The scientist raised his eyebrows.
“You think so? But whatever it’s like, we have to get Henry back. Yo u have to get Henry back.
Preferably before his presence there starts to distort the fabric of reality so badly that Myriad impinges upon our world.”
Gem nodded, because of course she was going to get Henry Word back, but then paused.
“Before it what?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention that? It’s a very simple matter real y, and the physics are absolutely fascinating, of course…”
Once more, Gem held up a hand to stop Dr.
Brown before he could launch into his explanation.
“If we are going to get him back, we wil need help.”
Dr. Brown nodded.
“I thought you might say that. That is why I have sent messages to Stieg Sparks, Riordan Roberts, Katherine Kipling and Jackson Zusak. They have accepted, and I have arranged transport.” It took Gem a moment to recognize the ful names.
“You mean Sparks, Rio, Kat and Jack are coming back here?”
“That is what I said, I believe.”
Gem nodded, considering. It would be so good to see them again, and they would certainly need the help.
“How soon wil they be here?” Gem asked.
“In the next day or so.”
“Good.”
Chapter 1
They met in the recreation room, which Dr.
Brown had commandeered for the afternoon despite some protests from the rest of the staff. Gem found herself playing pool against him while they waited, only to be subjected to a series of abject defeats as the scientist cleared the table easily each time he came to it.
“Henry Word was right,” Gem said after a while. “You are a pool shark.”
“I am a little adept at it, I admit.”
“A little?” Gem complained. “That would be like a violin virtuoso saying that they could play “a bit”. I’m not exactly a novice, but I haven’t won a game.”
They kept playing anyway, and it wasn’t long before the others started to trickle in. Sparks was the first to show up, hugging Gem tightly. He hardly looked any different from the start of the summer, with his clean-cut, quarterback blond good looks.
Rio was next. He too seemed unchanged, stil darkly handsome, and stil treating Gem to a flirtatious smile the moment he saw her. Kat and Jack were bigger surprises though. Kat was dressed casual y, in a dark sweater and jeans, but there was no sign of her black make-up, and her hair was a more uniform dark brown, without the red and blue streaks she’d had before. As for Jack…
Gem hardly recognized him when he walked in. He was tal er now, so that she actual y had to look up at him. He’d also fil ed out with muscle beneath his t-shirt and jeans. His glasses were gone, while his shock of red hair had become a deep reddish-brown. The transformation over just a couple of months was incredible.
Everyone had noticed it, but Sparks actual y acknowledged it. “Wow! If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was some sort of magical transmutat
ion. Who are you, and what have you done with Jack Zusak?” Jack laughed at that.
“It had to happen sometime.”
“I hate to put a stop to things,” Dr. Brown interrupted then, “but things are quite urgent. There are things you should know. Would you sit down please?”
They al took comfortable chairs. While they did so, Dr. Brown was busy arranging a rough zigzag of pool bal s on the table next to him. It looked like the set up for some sort of trick shot.
“First, you should know that Henry Word is missing.”
A murmur went through the group, but Dr.
Brown kept going.
“It appears that your efforts in the world of Anachronia have greater things in motion. At the moment, those things involve the world of Myriad. It is a dangerous place. Dreams and reality blur there, and mortals can easily lose themselves. Even a moment’ s complacency can be deadly. It is possible that is what has occurred with Henry, though it is equal y probable that he has been abducted.”
It was Kat who spoke first.
“This is what? Another new level?”
“No, Ms. Kipling. Myriad is real. As was Anachronia.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t expect us to believe that. Not after you showed us ourselves playing a game.”
It was almost nice to know that Kat hadn’t lost al of her fractious tendencies, Gem thought.
Almost.
“Kat,” Gem said, “I have spent the last two months ruling in Anachronia. It is real. Do you remember that I was the last to leave, when we went home?”
Kat nodded.
“I ran back at the last minute to talk to Henry Word. I found him in his study, holding a picture of himself and an Anachronian woman. When I asked him about it, he told me two things. First, that Anachronia was real, whatever was implicit in that demonstration before…”
“But it can’t be,” Kat insisted. Dr. Brown spun one of the bal s on the pool table.
“I’m afraid that it is true, Ms. Kipling. I
“I’m afraid that it is true, Ms. Kipling. I apologize that we had to… dissemble on the subject before, and if the duplicity on the part of Henry and myself has angered you, I apologize unreservedly. Please be in no doubt though that Anachronia is real.”